Improve your listening skills and meet your goals this 2020! First of a 5 part series.
Happy new year Verbling learners, I would like to wish you all a happy and successful 2020!
I'm well aware that some of you might have made some new year's resolutions for the upcoming year. For those of you who are unsure of what New Year’s resolutions are...They are goals that people set themselves on new years eve for the following year. For some of you, one of your resolutions might be to improve your English communication skills and I would like to share some tips with you that can help!
Today I will be writing about ways you can improve your listening abilities and everyday this week I will follow up with tips and advice on Speaking, Writing, Reading and Grammar.
Ways to improve your listening skills
- Listen to English podcasts. bbc.co.uk/podcasts is one great resource you can use to search for topics or hobbies that interest you. You can listen to them in the car or in your lunch break and they provide you with a great way to improve your listening proficiency whilst keeping you up to date on your favorite subjects.
- Watch movies and listen to music and news in English. Immerse yourself in the English listening environment! You should try and expose yourself to the English language for at least 1 hour everyday. If you have a B1 level or higher I recommend Ted talks. Go to www.ted.com to find a huge range of interesting topics, especially if your focus is business.
- Youtube is another excellent resource which has 2 excellent features that can help you to improve your skills; Playback Speed which you can gradually increase as you become more proficient, and Subtitles / Closed Captions which can help to improve your understanding of an otherwise difficult video. However, be careful with the grammar of the Subtitles / Closed Captions as the vocabulary and grammar is not always perfect! The icons for these 2 features are located near the bottom right corner of the YouTube screen.
I hope these tips are useful to you and don't forget to login to return to the Verbing website tomorrow to learn some great ways to improve your reading skills!
January 27, 2020
